This is a little spin-off of the classic/retro gaming websites list thread. While there are obvious places where game demo or shareware downloads can be found, like cd.textfiles.com, archive.org or FilePlanet, they are often tiresome to navigate, and may still lack the files needed. On the other hand, not every classic gaming website has a downloads section, leaving the users to find the games that have caught their attention on their own.

The alternative to this are file repositories that are more or less focused on a particular time period, genre and/or platform. These can be divided into several categories: